Documentation

Documentation

Oracle Exadata Documentation

As most of you are aware, Oracle does not publish the Exadata documentation. Apparently this is protect their software from competitors. But in my opinion, Oracle could increase their Exadata sales by making their documentation freely available for everyone to read, just like their other product’s documentation. Wouldn’t it be nice, when someone asks you regarding a feature of Exadata, if you had the ability to direct them to a link of Exadata documentation for that feature and they could be read at their leisure in detail.

I feel if more and more people know about Exadata, they would be able to advocate about Exadata and try to convince their company’s decision makers into buying Exadata machines. So making Exadata documentation publicly available should help oracle rather than their competitors. Also a knowledgable dba would be able to manage Exadata better than un-knowledgable dba.

Many Oracle DBA managing Exadata are not aware that Exadata documentation is available on every cell under /usr/share/doc/oracle/Exadata/doc folder. But if you dont have access to a Exadata cell, then how do you view the Exadata documentation? Well you have few options for that.

Ways to obtain Exadata Documentation

1. Ask your DBA/SystemAdmin who has access to Exadata cell to give your entire (including sub-directories) contents of /usr/share/doc/oracle/Exadata/doc folder. Then using your favourite internet browser open the index.html file to view documentation.

2. Extract the exadata documentation from cell images. You don’t have to install the Exadata Storage server software to obtain its documentation.

1. Create an Oracle Web Account at Oracle Technology Network aka OTN . Account creation direct link.
2. Wait for account validation email to come, click on link to verify your Oracle single sign on account.
3. Go to Oracle eDelivery site, now know as Oracle Software Delivery Cloud at http://eDelivery.oracle.com and login using your Oracle Web account.
4. Under Media pack search, select product pack as “Oracle Database” and platform as “Linux x86-64″ and hit Go.
5. It will list the Oracle Exadata Storage Server (CELL) Software Media pack links, download the storage server software. 11.2.2 media pack contains all 11.2.2.x.x cell and compute images.
6. Extract the files.
7. For older cell images (upto 11.2.2.3.3), you will find the cellImageMaker_<imageversion>.x86-64.tar.zip.
8. Extract the tar file from zipfile. In older cell images (upto 11.2.2.2.2), it will prompt you for a password which can be obtained from Oracle support. This password is common on all cellimage zipfiles. In newer cellimage from 11.2.2.3.2 onwards, zipfile is no longer password protected.
9. On any linux/unix machine extract the Exadata documentation from tar file using “tar -pxvf cellImageMaker_<imageversion>.x86-64.tar dl180/boot/cellbits/doclib.zip” command. This extracts the doclib.zip file containing Exadata documentation for that cell image version.

Enjoy learning Oracle Exadata from documentation.

[Update] – Exadata Documentation is now available via Patch 10386736

[Update, 28-Feb-15] Oracle Exadataion documentation is now available online at following link – http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E50790_01/welcome.html